Movies have played a central role in how we understand race, racial categories, and ethnic cultural identities. We will study Hollywood’s evolving portrayal of African-Americans, Asian-Americans and ethnic groups like Latinos and Italian-Americans. From Edison’s early films, through “Birth of a Nation,” and to the present, commercial cinema has denigrated Americans of color and stereotyped its ethnic groups. How are stereotypes built up on century-old cinematic traditions and how do they function today? What self-images have minority filmmakers presented as an alternative to mainstream views? In addition to looking at the critiques, we look at more positive aspects of ethnic and racial images and examine the ways that these images speak to the history of the nation as a whole. Note: This course fulfills the Race & Diversity (GD) requirement for students under GenEd and Studies in Race (RS) for students under Core.
Students cannot receive credit for this course if they have successfully completed FMA 0943.